


Enlightened

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-09-16
Updated: 2001-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:36:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>> Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 19:37:28 -0000<br/>> From: JaimeBlue<br/>> Subject: Challenge!!!<br/>> The story can either be slash, pre-slash, or just plain slashy.<br/>> I got this SmartQuote thing that brings up a funny quote every time I turn the comp on. Today's happened to be a conversation from 'Holoship' (it's not a RD thing, so I was shocked when it came up!). The conversation is when they're 'auditioning' for a new hologram, and they're talking to the one female candidate.<br/>> Anyway, the point is that I noticed that they admitted that every time they played poker it was *strip* poker. 4 guys, no women, and strip poker -- you get the idea ;)<br/>> Now write the story!<br/>> JB</p><p>The following relationships (ha) will be included: Lister/Cat (slightly pre-slash, advancing on slash), Holly (female)/Rimmer (het), and a femmeslash pairing for part three, which I hope to keep a secret until then...</p><p>Dedicated, but of course, to JB, my crazy Canuck cherub. I live and write only to please you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. As the Cards are Dealt...

**Author's Note:**

> Red Dwarf characters belong to Grant Naylor.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lister's POV.

I look at the cards in my hand and mock-spit onto the floor in disgust.

'What the smeg?'

Rimmer, holding his cards in gloves made of the same excited photons as a holo-whip, allowing them to contact both the hologram and the solid substance, grins. 'What's the matter Listy, bad hand?'

'Nah... I'm fine,' I say valiantly.

The Cat, sitting on the third side of the coffee table in the luxurious officers' lounge, yawns elaborately, exposing his shiny fangs. 'C'mon, Dormouse-Cheeks, get a move on.'

Kryten, the final member of our little poker-party, finishes dealing and picks up his own cards. He's incapable of hiding emotion, and as such, it becomes apparent that he isn't doing very well. That is, of course, if the fact that the mechanoid is down to his pink inner body shell doesn't give it away already.

'Losing again, Krytie?' I chuckle merrily.

Kryten casts an eye over my almost naked frame and refuses to say anything.

'Speak for yourself, Listy,' Rimmer says. The hologram is down to black satin boxers and white cotton socks. His feet are up on a chair, and he leans 'on' the table, cards in hand, apparently unaware of the occasional admiring glance shot his way by more than one of us. It's true that, despite his professed 'little understanding' with Holly about exercise, the guy still has a very fit body. Maybe that's Holly's doing anyway -- there have been some strange noises coming from the sleeping quarters when I would swear he was alone in there, and more than one voice...

The Cat is wearing nothing more than a strategically placed silk, hand-stitched handkerchief. All six of his nipples are hard brown knots along his well-muscled torso. I eye both their bodies with jealousy and try to pull my curry-stained T-shirt -- my sole remaining article of clothing -- down to cover my round belly. I wish Holly had a body. I wish Holly was playing. I wish Rimmer had stayed on the stupid _Enlightenment_ and we'd gotten what's-her-name Harrison as a replacement.

I wish I wasn't playing _strip_ poker.

It's bloody ridiculous, is what it is. It's an excuse for us to check each other out. After five years I've come to accept that we're the last four left, and I can't touch one of them. I can't bring myself to even think about Kryten -- a mechanoid? Gross! - and as for the Cat, well, I think it's still bestiality, no matter how many generations ago they stopped being beasts and started being beings.

Rimmer's got a nice arse, though.

He lays his cards down elegantly on the table, bowing out gracefully. I eye my cards, eye the others watching me, stay in. Kryten goes out. The Cat stays in. It's down to us two now.

'Well, sirs, I really must be going... the washing machine needs servicing.' God knows what innuendo lurks behind the _Don't be disgusting_ look on Kryten's face. He gathers up his body shell and groinal attachment -- the egg-beater, this time -- and waddles out of the lounge.

'_Don't_, Listy,' Rimmer says when I go to make a comment about what Kryten has just said. He pushes his cards to the middle of the table, pulls off his holo-gloves, and slaps me across the back of the head with it. 'I'm going up to our room... I'm going to study for the exam Holly is going to let me take again under her supervision.'

Sure. Like _that's_ what she's going to supervise.

'Ta-ta, lovey,' I say cheekily. He hits me again, this time with his bare, useless hand, and almost jogs out of the room. He's still only wearing black boxers and white socks. It's an interesting effect.

I turn my attention back to the Cat, who is surreptitiously adjusting his handkerchief. It's created its own little tent. 'So, feline-bro, ready to lose?'

'Ready to lose?' he mocks me. 'Ready to have your simian butt kicked, ape-bro?'

It's shocking. I didn't know he knew what 'simian' meant.

We start betting. Not that there's much ante to up. If I lose my T-shirt, or he loses his, um, campsite, the game is over.

So... it's time to show our hands.

'Full house.' The Cat lays his cards down in a neat semicircle on the table, and sparkles his fangs at me again.

I yawn, 'Royal flush', and leave his mouth hanging open.

'You... you...'

'No, Cat, don't get up!' But it's too late. He's up, his tent becoming a flag before fluttering to the floor and leaving him stark naked in the middle of the _Red Dwarf_ officer's lounge.

'Oh...' I moan. Cat covers himself, nonchalantly, one-handed.

'Sorry, bud.'

'That's okay.' I get up and drag my jocks and cargo pants on. When I glance sideways at him again - I can't help but admire the sleek curves of his dark body -- I see that his privacy hand is moving idly. 'Oh God, Cat, get a room!'

He apologises again as I head for the door. But he's between me and the door.

'I can't help it,' he explains, with a toothy smile. 'Man. I can't help it.'

I sigh, and stop close enough to him that I can smell his musky body, see the way his long slim fingers are stroking himself, and practically _hear_ the way the dark head of his cock is throbbing under his hand.

'Well, if you can't help it...'

I reach out and take hold of him, nudging his hand aside, deliberately not looking at his face, which is probably shocked.

'... at least let _me_ help you.'


	2. Mastery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rimmer's POV.

I manage to read my latest four pages of notes I've taken from the textbook -- it takes me about twenty minutes -- before there is a soft chime from the wall monitor. Good. Holly's decided to talk to me again.

'Hol.' My voice is soft, conciliatory. 'Would you mind doing me a favour?'

'What would that be, Arn?' the pretty blonde asks.

'Give me my clothes back?' I make begging, wide eyes at her. 'Come on, the game's over. I'm getting cold.'

'You don't look like you're getting cold.' She's watching me approvingly as I get up and move over to stand in front of her screen, once the mirror - not exactly of my own volition. If I look in the right place I can still see my reflection. She's walked me to just the right place that the reflection of my boxer shorts is superimposed over her mouth. 'You look pretty good, actually.'

She won't let me move my hands down to cover myself. A familiar tingle of heat moves through my body, concentrated on one area, of course, at being restrained like this.

'You're such a bloody dominatrix, you know that?'

I feel the sting across my back, like a little whip has been taken to me. God this woman knows all the moves. This feels good. So good...

It's about to get better.

'What do you want with me this time?' I ask, hearing my own voice, roughened with desire. Desire for a woman I cannot touch, who must bring me to fulfilment in... other ways.

She pretends to consider for a while; I know it's only acting. These visits have grown too frequent for me not to know her behaviour.

'I want to watch you again,' she finally decides. My hands are freed from at my sides, but are going in only one direction: in towards the tumescence in my black boxer shorts. I undo the single button at the fly and hook my cock out through the opening. I'm damn hard; the little minx doesn't need to do anything to get me that way. Even twenty minutes after leaving Lister downstairs... I block those thoughts out of my mind, struggling to get enough control over my hands to let them do what I want them to do.

Holly's watching me intently from her screen as I play with myself, hands catching up and smoothing along the length of my shaft, hard muscle rising out of its soft bed of brown curls. Her eyes are darting from there to my face, making sure I'm enjoying this; to roam over my body and admire what she sees there. No wonder she makes sure I get the minimum of exercise every day, even though most of it's walking around trying to find Lister, the sod.

I know that soon just watching will not be enough for my blonde temptress, and sure enough after a few more minutes -- during which I am brought almost to breaking point - my hands are stopped. She moves my arms behind my back, and I feel cold metal encircling my wrists. I don't know, because I can't see, whether she's simulated handcuffs or I'm just getting that sensation, but it sends a thrill down my spine.

My eyes flutter closed as I feel her hand close around me. It's like she's standing behind me, one hand enveloping me, the other on my shoulder. I can feel her breasts against my back, her light breaths on my neck. My own breath is coming in short uneven gasps, but hers is paced and even, and has a tiny laugh in it at my responses. She's not laughing at me though, but with me, although I'm far too distracted to laugh myself.

Holly's unseen hands are both on my cock now, one caressing my shaft, the other rubbing delicately over the sensitive head. I teeter on the fine line between pleasure and pain as she does that -- but it hurts so good, so good. She won't let my hands move from behind my back, of course, not now.

I worry, as I do every time, about Lister walking in. No, this isn't the first time Holly has done this to me -- no, it isn't the most she's ever done, either.

Even when she was a he.

'Ah... God...'

Her invisible presence moves around me, rubbing provocatively over my body, and I feel the soft brush of unseen hair over my stomach -- washboard flat, with a nicely developing set of muscles -- just before my cock is enveloped by her hot, smooth, wet lips.

'Holly...'

There's no answer. Her image on the mirror has her eyes closed in concentration. I feel her teeth graze over me, not hard enough to hurt. Her tongue circles over the tip of me and laps lightly at the drops of fluid there. There'll be more than a few drops in a minute. I think of how her mouth will be flooded with my seed and feel an almost excruciating throb go through my length into Holly's mouth. She feels it too and her tongue stops its movements for a moment.

'Good?'

'God yeah.'

She's freed my hands. I have one hand on the edge of the basin now, supporting myself; the other is wrapped around the base of my shaft now, trying to speed my release. Holly doesn't seem to mind; her mouth is just touching me now, tongue still licking at the head Lister often accuses me of thinking with.

'Smeggin' hell!'

I turn, caught in a very undignified position. Lister is in the doorway, looking stunned and tired and gorgeous.

'Rimmer... for God's sake...'

Holly's face vanishes from the screen, leaving behind a giggle only I hear.

'Oh Christ, Lister,' I moan as I tuck myself back into my boxers, 'did you have to?'

Lister raises one eyebrow and hobbles over to the bunks. 'Bad timing?'

'Look, that wasn't my idea. It was Holly's.' I throw myself down onto my own bunk and turn to face the wall. Lister is slowly, painfully climbing the ladder to his bunk. 'And why are _you_ walking like you just got... oh.' A thought occurs to me. 'You and the Cat didn't... did you?'

'Don't ask.' He's out of sight, but his tone of voice confirms all I need to know.

'_Really_?'

'Really _what_?'

'Did you _really_ just shag the Cat?'

'No.'

'_No_?'

'He 'shagged', as you put it, me.'

'Right. That would explain why you're walking like someone just stuck a...'

'Rimmer?'

'Yes?'

'Shut _up_.'


	3. Beyond Tachyons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nirvana's POV.

I reappear standing on the bridge, the Captain close by me, his First and Second Officers flanking him.

'Captain.' I salute politely; inside, I'm a maelstrom of emotions. Emotions I haven't felt since I was alive, so long ago. 'Is there a reason I have been switched back on? Has one of the crew members been demoted?'

'Commander Crane, Mr Rimmer has chosen to return to his ship, saying that he believed you have fallen in love with him, and that he would prefer to give up his post for your life.' Captain Platini delivers this in such a flat voice I have trouble registering what he's saying for a moment, but then it sinks in.

'Arnie... what? Why? I gave up...' I look at the three of them. Officer Pushkin has a disapproving look on her finely sculptured features. Officer Navarro is smirking. I've said the wrong thing. 'Yes, sir.'

'He requested that you be given this.' Platini hands me a note in an envelope. 'May I suggest, Commander, that you undergo some time in A.R.? It would be beneficial to your mental health.'

'Yes, sir. Where is the other ship now?'

'Dismissed, Commander.'

'But...'

'_Dismissed_, Commander.'

'Right,' I mutter. I walk out. I feel their eyes following me as I leave the room. They're probably hoping I hurry, so they can get it on. The amount of rumours spread about our Captain and his two offsiders is legendary.

Just outside the Drive Room, I run into our geo-mapper, who looks flustered.

'Yvonne, are you all right?'

'I'm fine, Nirvana.' She takes a close look at me. 'Are _you_ all right? Did something go wrong?'

I open my mouth to say that everything is fine, nothing's gone wrong, and I'm operating as usual, and burst into tears.

* * *

In my opinion, Yvonne McGruder is one of the finest members of the _Enlightenment_ team. Her only shortcoming is that she still, at times, succumbs to human emotions, and once held a steady relationship with another officer -- that was, of course, until they were found out and the man was dismissed, his hormones being blamed.

'Nirvana, you've got to get a grip on yourself,' she says to me as we sit side by side on the bed in my quarters. The door is locked and the privacy is on; I don't want to take the chance of a non-sympathetic crew member finding me in this condition.

'Why?' I sniffle around the scrunched tissue I am holding.

'Because if you don't, you'll be switched off, just like James was, without any chance of resurrection. People _like_ you, Nirvana. _I_ like you. I was one of a group who thought it was right that you did what you did. There were three of us. Three people out of over two thousand think that it's all right to have emotions. The other one thousand nine hundred and whatever... if they found out the circumstances, they'd have you switched off again.' There is a note of fear in Yvonne's voice. 'A lot of the others are getting arrogant, Nirvana, and without a straight thinker such as you, this ship would be lost. Platini's a git, and as for Navarro, I loathe him. He's so inconsiderate in bed...'

'Arnie wasn't,' I murmur without thinking.

Yvonne turns to me, her head tilted slightly to the side, a puzzled expression in her hazel eyes. 'Who did you say?'

'Arnie. The man who I gave up everything for. Almost everything,' I amend. I gave up my virtual life for him... I gave up my mortal life for the Enlightenment Project. Yvonne joined the ship shortly after me, having died years earlier in an office block bombing.

'Arnie... what was his last name?' Yvonne asks, starting to look very interested.

'Rimmer,' I reply. 'Arnold J. Rimmer.'

'The J stands for Judas, but he tells everyone it stands for Jonathan,' Yvonne says.

'That's right,' I say. 'How did you know that?'

'He's my son's father.'

If we had pins and solid floors on which to drop them, I would hear one now.

'_Arnold Rimmer_ fathered your son?' I ask incredulously after a moment.

Yvonne nods. 'His full name is Michael Rimmer McGruder. I couldn't bear to saddle him with 'Arnold', and 'Rimmer' worked all right.'

'I simply can't believe this,' I whisper. 'Who would think such a coincidence possible?'

'Well, we could always ask Stochy for a probability estimate, but I really don't think that's necessary.' Yvonne smiles. 'But really, it wasn't such a big deal. I got knocked on the head with a winch, he was there, and... oh, it's so embarrassing, but I didn't really realise it was him. I slept with him, if 'slept' is the right word, and then barely spoke to him ever again.'

'Oh Yvonne!' I fight back more tears as I think of my own encounter with Arnold Rimmer. A softly-spoken man, with more neuroses than a body has neurons, but lovable in his own quiet way. I know I still love him. Love...

''Von, can you believe how this ship's eliminated emotions?'

'No, 'Vana, I can't. We're still humans, after all, just dead ones. Emotions are crucial to the human psyche, be they positive or negative. That's what's made this ship, and the other holoships, so notoriously arrogant. I hate it!' Yvonne speaks with the passion of someone who has thought about this for a long, long time. And she's had that time, too. Being a hologram grants the person a terrible immortality. Forever, never knowing if you are truly dead, truly alive, knowing only that you inhabit a curious twilight zone between the two.

''Von, calm down,' I say. 'Privacy may be on, but the emotion abundance detector still operates, and if Stochy finds out that you're fizzing like this, he'll send someone to talk to you.'

Yvonne buries her head in her hands. 'We're humans, not just photons.'

'Tachyons,' I remind her. '_Super_light particles.'

'Whatever. We're meant to be something beyond tachyons. We're meant to have souls. Just because we're dead doesn't mean we can't have souls!' The last words are almost shrieked into her hands, and her shoulders are shaking. Not knowing what else to do, I put an arm around her, and Yvonne leans against me like I'm her last hope. 'I have a soul...'

'Of course you have a soul. You have a good, kind, loving soul. You're one of the few people on this ship who does.' I say these words; I wonder if I will be the one to erase Yvonne and her friends when they are inevitably found out for these emotional outbursts.

'So do you, 'Vana. You've got a soul. You're a real person.' Yvonne takes her face out of her hands and looks up at me, cheeks tear-stained and radiant. 'I'm so proud of you for doing what you did for love.'

I kiss her gently underneath each eye. 'I guess...'

'No. This is the way you are. You have to accept it.' She kisses me back, on each corner of my mouth. A strange tingle shoots through me. 'Accept it, 'Vana: you have a soul.'

'I have a soul,' I repeat dutifully, kissing the tip of her nose.

She smiles. 'That's my girl.' It's the last thing she says before her mouth meets mine.

During the course of our shared kiss, I feel her pull out the combs that restrain my hair; it falls free to brush against her cheeks. I unbutton the shoulder strap of her uniform, moving my mouth away from hers and down the side of her throat.

This damn uniform is such a pain to get out of; whoever designed it had the brains of a deceased dingo. We have to break away for a moment to drag the quilted jumpsuits off, gold and scarlet piles on the floor. Yvonne's wearing black satin underneath. Whoever brought me back hasn't given me any underwear. Probably Randy Navarro. Randy, contrary to some beliefs, is _not_ his real name. It's a well-earned nickname.

''Vana...'

'I know, I know, you think I go around like this deliberately? Jeez.' An IQ of 138 and I'm talking like a teenager.

'Who cares if it's deliberate or not?' She shoves me back onto the bed with a complete lack of finesse and starts kissing the side of my throat. 'Just as long as I can take full advantage of it.'

And she does.

* * *

Lying there afterwards, I can't help but think again of Arnold Rimmer. One person, who has had such a profound effect on two people. One person, who's done so much without even being here. Someday, I'd really like to meet up with him again.

I'd like to thank him for giving me back my soul.


End file.
